‘Where’s a limousine when you need it?’ The pilot was enjoying himself. Yes, he’d been pulled away from his family Christmas, but he’d had his Christmas dinner and the bonus he’d been promised made him very happy indeed. ‘Maybe I could take you over the house and lower you on a rope,’ he told him, grinning, and William thought, where’s the respect? He’d made the mistake of chatting to Steve about his family, and look where it got him.

And then he saw Letty’s wagon bumping across the paddocks and he stopped thinking about Steve-he stopped thinking of anything but Meg.

Was it Meg? The car came to a halt, the driver’s door opened, but, before he could see who it was five dogs tumbled out, enveloping him in a sea of canine ecstasy.

He’d been at the farm for three days. By the dogs’ reaction, they were his lifelong friends and he’d been gone for years.

He kind of liked it. But still… Hopefully, Meg was behind them. He managed to shove the dogs aside. The pack descended on Steve, who backed into his cockpit. The dogs jumped right up after him. Hopefully, the machine was hard to start, otherwise they risked flight by dog. Whatever, William was too busy looking at Meg to do anything about it.

For she was here.

She was wearing…pyjamas? Pink silk with tiny stars and moons all over. Silver stars. His sense of unreality deepened. Her hair was messed as if she’d been asleep. She looked rumpled and sexy and so fabulous he wanted to scoop her into his arms right then and there.

Think of something to say, Stupid, he told himself but he was having trouble. Tonight had made sense to him at the planning stage. Now he was having trouble getting started.

‘You had to bring the dogs,’ he managed, as a muffled grunt emerged from the cockpit.

‘Anyone could be landing in our hay paddock. On the chance that you could be enemy alien cow poachers…’

‘You came wearing pyjamas?’

‘I have a loaded bazooka under these pyjamas.’

He eyed the pyjamas. They were silky and clinging and…

No. Don’t think of what might or might not be under those pyjamas. Definitely not a bazooka.

What to say? He gazed at Meg, at her adorably confused face, at her wonderful stars and moons, at her dishevelled hair. This was Meg, the woman he loved with all his heart, and he knew he had to go forward.

The woman he loved with all his heart…

When had he figured this out? Just then, he thought. He’d known he had to come. He’d planned to come. But now, looking at her, he knew for sure.

All those corny movies he’d watched as a lonely child…they were right. Throw your hat into the ring. Jump.

‘I had to come back for you,’ he said simply, his gaze not leaving her face.

‘I said I couldn’t come with you,’ she whispered, sounding awed.

‘You don’t need to come. I didn’t come back to fetch you. I came back to be with you.’

‘P…pardon?’

‘I came back because I love you,’ he said, strongly now, more sure. ‘I came back because when it came down to it I couldn’t leave.’

‘You love me?’ She said it wonderingly, and he knew the alien thing was still in her mind. She said it as if his words were some sort of fantasy that had no connection to reality.

It was up to him to make her see this was real. That this was true.

‘I do love you.’ It was as serious as any wedding vow. He took a step towards her but she held up her hands as if to ward him off. As if she was afraid.

Behind him, Steve was still surrounded by dogs. He couldn’t be holding five collars, yet the dogs were all still. It was as if they sensed how important this was.

Was this important to a chopper pilot? To dogs?

Why not? It was the whole world to him.

‘Meg, I need to know,’ he said roughly, because he couldn’t bear to wait a moment longer. ‘When you talked about loving… Did you mean it? That you could love me?’

‘I might,’ she whispered, and his world settled. Things were falling into place that he’d never realised were out of kilter until now. That he’d known this woman for three long years and not loved her… How could he have been so blind?

How could he waste another moment? It was killing him not to take her into his arms but he knew he shouldn’t.

Do not rush this.

As if falling in love in three days, hiring a helicopter in the middle of the night, telling her he wanted her right now, wasn’t rushing things.

Okay, do not rush this even more.

So say it. Lay the whole plan on the line.

‘I can move here,’ he said and Meg’s face froze.

‘Here?’

‘It’s not impossible.’

‘I think I need to sit.’

‘Can I hold you up?’

‘Not until I figure what you’re talking about.’

‘My plans.’

‘I like plans,’ she said faintly. ‘Okay, talk.’

So he talked. ‘I’ll explain fast,’ he said, and it had to be fast because if he didn’t hold her soon he’d go up in smoke. ‘I propose to base myself here. No, wrong, I propose we base ourselves here, because I need you, Meg, in business, in every facet of my life. You’re smart and intuitive and funny and I want you with me every step of the way. So what I’d really like is to build here, set up headquarters here. Keep the farm but add to it. We’d need a helicopter pad. I fancy a swimming pool. And I bet a gymnasium would really help Scott.’

‘Scott…’

‘He’s part of it. He’s part of your life. Family.’

‘William…’

‘I know,’ he said hurriedly, afraid to stop, afraid of how she’d respond. ‘It’s just it was a really long train ride back to Melbourne, and making plans is what I’m principally good at. I thought we could restore the old cottage on the other side of the dairy and ask Kerrie if she’d consider living here. Letty told me it was a dream of yours and it sounds good to me. That means we’d always have a milker on hand. Then…maybe we could employ a nanny…’

‘A nanny,’ she said, astonished.

‘For Kerrie’s kids,’ he said hurriedly. ‘And for…for whoever else might come along. That means you and I can travel, whenever we wish. There’s so much… It’ll take us years to sort it out, but we will. We can. If we want to. If you want to. What…what do you think?’

There was a long, long pause. The enemy alien cow poacher was still in the back of her mind, he thought, but slowly, slowly, he watched her expression change. She was searching his face and what she saw seemed to change things.

‘I think…’ she whispered, but then her voice firmed. ‘I think I’d never leave our kids with a nanny,’ she said, and suddenly the woman in the pink silk pyjamas was smiling.

His heart gave a leap. I’d never leave our kids… There were all sorts of assumptions in that statement, and he liked them all.

‘How many kids would you like?’ he asked tenderly.

‘William!’

Maybe he had to throw in a few more inducements. Maybe he still didn’t have it right. How to talk of love… It seemed so fragile-and all he had was words. Not now.

‘You know, Letty and Scotty could travel with us too, if they like,’ he said hurriedly. ‘They could see Manhattan. And London and Hong Kong. I think they’d like it. But I’m serious about only travelling when I must.’ He hesitated. ‘You know, I didn’t get this right. My parents taught me personal stuff was a disaster so I buried myself in work. But you…you enjoy what you do for me, yes?’

‘I love it,’ she said simply.

‘Yet you love the farm.’

‘Yes.’

‘As I like pulling silencers off cars.’

‘Do you?’

‘I do,’ he said and it was a vow. She was looking at him very strangely but he’d started-he had to explain. And he was struggling to explain it to himself.

Words… Find the right words, he told himself. Get it right.

Say the love word.

‘I’ve been thinking…if I could mix grease guns with business, then maybe I could mix loving in there somewhere as well,’ he tried, but it didn’t sound right.

‘In the spare bits?’

‘No,’ he said, sure of himself on this one. ‘In all my bits. In my business. In my spare time, in my hobbies, in my dreams. I want loving in all of it. Meg, I want you.’

She looked stunned. She looked star-struck. ‘You’re truly serious?’

And there was only one answer to that. ‘I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life,’ he said simply. ‘No matter what happens, at the end of every day of my life I want to lie in bed with you.’

‘And…talk?’ she managed, and there was the beginning of laughter in her lovely eyes.

‘Or anything else that might occur to us,’ he told her, smiling, loving her with all his heart, and suddenly she chuckled, a lovely deep ripple of wonder, and he thought he might just have got this right.

‘So will you marry me?’ he asked, for what else was there to say?

She gasped. ‘You want to marry me?’

‘Yes.’ Then… ‘But I do have a problem,’ he was forced to admit. ‘Try as I might, Christmas night is not a time to buy a ring.’

‘Not?’ she said and she laced her voice with such a depth of disappointment that he wasn’t sure where the chuckle ended and sincerity began.

Aargh. He had everything right except this. But then Killer took a leap from the chopper and lumbered over. Dangling from his collar was his dog tag. It was a ring-of sorts.

‘Excuse me, Killer,’ he said and flicked off the collar and removed the tag. ‘Can I borrow this until the shops reopen?’

‘I don’t believe this,’ Meg said faintly.

‘We need to organise new tags, anyway,’ William said, refastening the collar. ‘I’m shipping Sheeba out here as soon as I possibly can.’

‘You’re shipping Sheeba…’

‘I figure you have one dog; Letty has two and Scott has two. When I decided to stay, I took out my Christmas card and stared at the picture of Sheeba and thought-how could I turn my back on such a fine gift? But I’m not doing part-time anything any more, so she gets to be full-time. I’m hoping she likes being a farm dog, but how could she not?’ And then, because this seemed as good a time as any, he dropped on one knee and held out the dog tag. ‘So, Miss Jardine…’